1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an actuating device for a device for monitoring the vehicle surroundings, and also relates to a method for initiating a calibration of a device for monitoring the vehicle surroundings.
2. Description of Related Art
Systems for monitoring the vehicle surroundings which are equipped with cameras are already known in the automotive sector; due to the very low optical focal lengths, these cameras depict an environment of the motor vehicle from a bird's-eye perspective. One disadvantage of such plan view or bird's eye view systems is that slight displacements and consequently faulty calibrations of the cameras, or faulty calibrations among the cameras, can occur as a result of installation positions of the individual cameras.
For instance, said displacements can result from the fact that the cameras are in part installed directly in side mirrors of the motor vehicle; these side mirrors can be actively moved and are no longer able to reach the exact initial position when moved back. Because of the exposed installation positions, the lenses of the cameras can become heavily soiled during driving, which is why the cameras are partly protected from environmental effects by means of a protective mechanism. The mentioned faulty calibrations of the cameras may cause performance restrictions of calibration algorithms, e.g., in an object detection or a fusion of ultrasonic and camera images.